Comcast lawyers agree to shrink class size

If at first you don’t succeed, redesign your proposed class action. That’s the tactic that lawyers for a group of Comcast Corp. subscribers are taking, after the Supreme Court shot down their first attempt at class certification, Thomson Reuters reports.

Two million subscribers in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey filed the suit, in which they accused the cable provider of creating a monopoly by buying up competitors and overcharging for services. But the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in March that the class was too diverse in both their location and their claims, and did not have a precise method for determining damages.

Undeterred, lawyers for the plaintiffs have reportedly submitted a revised plan that “will address the Supreme Court majority’s concerns” by cutting the class from 16 counties in three states to three Pennsylvania counties. They accuse Comcast of trying to discourage competition from “overbuilders,” including RCN Telecom Services, that tried to move into those five counties.

Comcast says that the proposed class still doesn’t have a clear damages model because RCN “considered overbuilding only in selected localities within those five counties.”